I've walked most of the Appalachian Trail...its ups and downs are a lot like life. I love life, but EMT work has taught me that life is uncertain for us all. Let's talk about how to make the world work. There's lots of people who've got to live with what we leave behind.

Friday, January 09, 2009

Looking Way Back to November 4th

Wow! It seems like a long time since that black guy won 365 electoral votes and the presidency. The rough and tumble of politics is a daily thing, so the guy who is not even president yet seems like someone we've known for a long time. People of all stripes are already sniping at him. What a job! Fortunately, Obama seems up to it. We'll see.

Back home, we got a new democrat in our congressional district - Eric Massa, a really bright ex-Navy officer who beat a rural republican lawyer for the job. Massa, who seemed like a very pragmatic guy when I met him on his first try for the job, has now become a full-fledged northern liberal democrat who can't say anything bad about a union, even though the public employee and teachers unions have ruined New York. There is a litmus test, no question about it. I'm hoping Obama has more backbone. But don't get me wrong...I like unions until they become more important than the companies or governments that they supposedly work for.

My Obama t-shirt came in the mail the other day. I'm still in his court. I like his rather centrist cabinet and his choices for other key positions. We need smart people who can get things done, more than we need ideologues from the right or the left. The latter provide a conscience, the former do the work. And I'm happy that the Obama kids are in a famous private school instead of the crappy schools of Washington, DC. Maybe someday the rich will not have to make such choices, but that day is far off.

But most of all, I'm happy that John McCain (the Impetuous) and Sarah Palin (the Clueless) are not leading us. Already the new president will have to deal with a middle east in chaos and an economy in shambles. Who knows what perils lie ahead? We need cool and smart people in charge if we are to weather the storm of the next couple years. I've learned that even the best leaders should be overjoyed if 75% of their decisions turn out to be right, so we can't expect perfection. With McCain and Palin, my guess is that somebody other than either of them would already be running the country from the sidelines...and that somebody would be a right-wing nutcase and his buddies. You know what that would result in, since we've had that for eight long years.

Obama should have his chance to lead. Congressional leadership, even during the past few weeks, has again proved its ineptness. For example, congress passed the bailout program and is now bitching constantly about "what happened to the $700 billion". Well, they passed the law! Whatever happened, happened on their watch. If they were smarter than Paulson, they should have come up with their own plan. Frankly, when times are at their worst, strong leaders are needed the most. Committees never won a battle.

Since I'm roving all over the place tonight, I'll just finish with my latest concept proposal. Our departing president will be building his own library before too long, funded by all the war profiteers and oil magnates that prospered during his disastrous term. Given the sack of shit that he's left on almost every American porch, we should honor him with what he really deserves - a Bush memorial library funded by average Americans. This library would have the goal of collecting and evaluating every tidbit of information about his background and his blunders, so that he is never forgotten and Americans can forever learn from him "how not to govern". Where can I send my contribution?

2 comments:

I like the library idea. It could be to presidential libraries what the unauthorized biography is to autobiographies. It could even have a little robot that stood out front and greeted people with inane Bushisms, after which it would shimmy its shoulders and grin like an idiot.